THE RICHARD CAPLES BUILDING (1909) The Richard Caples Building, prominently sited at East San Antonio Avenue and South Mesa Street, was the first of Henry Trost’s downtown edifices to be constructed of reinforced concrete. It marked the beginning of a series of architectural experiments that put El Paso on the path to becoming the so-called “reinforced concrete city.” Work began in April 1909 and was completed in less than seven months. Richard Caples, who had served as the city’s mayor between 1889 and 1893, was an experienced masonry contractor; and this may explain why concrete was chosen as the primary medium for this particular building. John J. Stewart was appointed supervising architect and the contractor Otto P. Kroeger was charged with executing the project. When completed, the U-shaped structure stood five stories tall; but between 1915 and 1916, two additional stories were added. Marble was used extensively in the main corridor, and the other interior spaces were finished with elegant wooden trim. The medium of concrete had been perfected by the Romans during the fourth century BC and then employed in architecture throughout the ancient world, most famously in the dome of the Pantheon erected by the emperor Hadrian. With the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476, the technology was completely forgotten for more than a thousand years—that is, until the Industrial Revolution of early-modern Europe. In the late-nineteenth century, European and American builders introduced reinforcing steel rods into concrete, greatly increasing its tensile strength and making its use practical for high-rises and skyscrapers. The foundation and core structure of the Richard Caples Building consist of concrete that was poured into wooden forms and allowed to set. The exterior surfaces were faced with elegant brickwork, with the exception of the protruding concrete cornice, which was the only element of the architecture that revealed its internal composition. The first version of the building was not characterized by any defining style, but the two-story superstructure that was added afterwards, with its engaged Ionic columns and stilted arches, has an unmistakably Romanesque accent. The ground level was designated for retail, with offices of various companies occupying the upper floors. The building has a long and distinguished history, and it figured prominently in the Mexican Revolution. In 1911, only two years after the fifth story was completed, Francisco Madero declared that El Paso would be the epicenter of his revolutionary movement, outside Mexico; and for a time, rooms 507 and 508, with their sweeping views, served as the administrative headquarters of the Madero regime. When the government of the United States sought to arrest Madero and Abraham González, the provisional governor of Chihuahua, the two men escaped to Mexico, but their staff managed to remain inside the building. The edifice was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and today it is abandoned and in extremely poor condition. The cornice that decorated the top of the fifth story has disappeared, and parts of the structure are protected only by makeshift boards. The current owner is Billy Abraham, a direct descendant of Richard Caples. Copyright Max Grossman, 2015. Much of the source material is drawn from extensive research conducted by June-Marie and Lloyd Engelbrecht, and by the El Paso County Historical Commission.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 19:33:07 +0000